


The Black Tux Gang

by ChipAndDealer



Category: Danny Phantom, Miraculous Ladybug, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Makes Puns, Batdad, Chat Noir Being Chat Noir, Dick Grayson is Robin, Gen, Group chat, Irondad, Multiple Crossovers, Robin uses those detective skills, Why did I pick the five characters who talk the most in a fight?, but i made it anyway, no one asked for this, oh god the puns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23203828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipAndDealer/pseuds/ChipAndDealer
Summary: Robin: I gave each of you a note because I suspect you are the civilian identities of Danny Phantom, Chat Noir, and Spiderman. Am I wrong?Ghostboy: Why is it every time i leave town someone figures out my secret identity?Peter B: maybe its a signPeter B: wait is this all people at that party?Peter B: spy.jpegPeter B: it could be any one of usGhostboy: Well youre spidermanGhostboy: You put your real name as your usernameLucky: Also, you walked in with Iron Man, which was kind of a giveaway.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Danny Fenton & Vlad Masters, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 194
Kudos: 1081





	1. Four-In-Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Now, you may have clicked into this story and are currently wondering something like, 'Huh?' or, 'Why?' or maybe even, 'Don't you have other stories you should be writing?' and while these are all valid questions, I don't really have any valid answers. This idea came to my head and beat me senseless until I wrote it, so here you go.

It was the must-attend event of the year, if you happened to be a billionaire. Champagne flowed, singers crowed, and Daniel Fenton argued with his archenemy outside the front door.

"This is the favor?" He gestured emphatically with one arm at the golden doorway, already incredibly gaudy before they'd even stepped inside. "I thought it would be something like robbing a bank or kidnapping someone."

Vlad Masters touched a hand to his chin, considering. "Would you have done that? It seems like a wasted opportunity now."

"No." Danny crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. "No stealing. No kidnapping."

"Then what are you worried about?" Vlad circled him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder before he could blink. "You get to attend the most prestigious party of the year, I get to show you off to a few friends, your debt is paid, we both go home happy."

"You're not telling anyone about my ghost powers," Danny warned and Vlad could only roll his eyes.

"Don't insult my intelligence, Daniel. I intend to use you as a puppet for my own ends purely in a human capacity today." He said, bluntly.

"Why do you even want to show me off, then?" Vlad was always up to something, he knew that, but dressing him up in a suit and taking him to a fancy party seemed fairly benign, at least for him. For a favor in exchange for letting Danny use Vlad's ghost portal in an emergency, he got off remarkably scot free.

"While I would absolutely love to explain each of my intricate and constantly spinning plans in minute detail to you, our arrival is rapidly moving from fashionably late to unfashionably late. Shall we?" He gestured to the door, impatiently.

"Alright I'll do it," Danny agreed, reluctantly, tugging at his bow-tie. "But if this is some kind of trick to get me away from the Fenton Portal-"

"I don't need tricks to get you away from the Fenton Portal, Daniel," Vlad huffed. "I just need to throw a bone and your idiot father will drag the entire family after it."

Danny rolled his eyes, heading toward the door where two of the biggest bouncers he'd ever seen stood.

"Vlad Masters, this is my nephew." He told the guards and Danny gave him a skeptical eyebrow raise Vlad could only shrug at.

"Nephew?" Danny asked when they got inside.

"You would prefer I refer to you as the progeny of my one true love? Or perhaps as my archenemy?" He queried back as they stepped into the elevators, also colored a solid gold.

"Point," Danny acknowledged. "I still don't get why you're going through all this just to get me into some fancy party."

"I suppose you could consider yourself something like my ticket in," he answered with a mischievous grin. Before Danny could ask what he meant, the elevator doors opened to reveal an enormous party.

It took up the entire floor, rock climbing against one wall, a private DJ against another, food lined up on countless tables end to end, a robe course above the room, and a big gold banner hanging up with the words 'Happy Birthday Adrien' in elegant black cursive.

"This is a birthday party?" Danny cried, incredulously.

Vlad rubbed his hands together, still smiling. "A birthday party containing some of the richest and most influential inventors, businessmen, and designers the world has to offer. Ten figure minimum annual income, by personal invitation only, and must bring a suitably aged child."

And there was the other shoe Danny was waiting to drop. Still not as bad as he was expecting. Vlad got to rub elbows with other rich people for a bit, Danny paid back the favor, and that rock wall was already calling his name. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

"Come. We must greet the host first." Vlad expertly wheeled Danny past groups of mingling people, both teenagers like him, and adults, right up to a blonde man with pale pink glasses dressed in an elegant white suit.

The man looked at Vlad, then his eyes dipped to Danny, expression never changing. Danny shivered. He hadn't even said a word, but it was clear this man was different than Vlad, cold in a way he couldn't manage. "Vlad Masters," he said, like he was carefully tasting the name before deciding whether or not to spit it out or drink it. "I wasn't sure you'd make it."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Vlad assured him, before turning to Danny. "Gabriel Agreste, this is my nephew, Daniel. He plans to put me out of business one day."

"Isn't that the dream?" He asked, rhetorically, turning his gaze fully on Danny. "Try to find my son, if you can; perhaps some of that ambition will rub off on him."

"How is Adrien, by the by?" Vlad asked, and Gabriel waved his hand like he dismissed the very question.

"He is an exemplary student and the leading model in his category. I would accept nothing less," he said, idly, then looked up toward the elevator for a moment. "Please, enjoy the party," he said, and Vlad took the tacit dismissal as Gabriel stood to greet other guests.

"Now, I have important business to attend to, so go... play, or whatever it is you do, and do not embarrass me." With this explicit dismissal, Vlad also walked away, leaving Danny in the middle of the extravagant party without a clue what to do next.

With a shrug, he made his way toward the rock wall. "Since I'm already here..." he mused aloud.

  
  


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The golden elevator began it's steady ascent, its two occupants tucked safely inside. One, a thick built businessman, the other a gangly teen, both in black suits, but the teen with a flare of red in his tie.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Bruce Wayne relaxed, confident that Gabriel Agreste wasn't the type to bug his own buildings. Of course, he scanned the place beforehand just in case. "How are the Titans?"

"They're getting stronger by the day," Dick Grayson answered. "I just wish our enemies weren't, too."

"If you continue honing your body, you can keep up with them," Bruce said, impassively. "But sharpening your mind is the only path forward."

Dick nodded, but made no other answer. After a moment, he changed the subject. "It's been a while since I've gone out without the mask." He reached a hand up to touch the skin around his eyes. "I almost feel naked without it."

"You get used to it," Bruce assured him, before a troubled crease marred his brow. "That is something I wanted to talk to you about, though. This party isn't entirely business."

Dick raised an eyebrow. "Are you meeting someone?"

"No." Bruce smiled, an expression Dick still found a little strange on his face even when it wasn't covered in a cowl. "But you are."

Dick did a double-take. "What? Who am I supposed to be meeting?"

"I'm glad the Titans are working out. I'm especially glad that you're all friends as well as teammates. Take it from me, that's not an easy thing to juggle, but at the same time, you're neglecting something." It wasn't judgemental, but Dick bristled anyway.

"I've been training my mind as well as my body. I've been fighting crime and strengthening the bond with my teammates. What have I been neglecting?" He ruffled a hand through his hair, mussing the gel in frustration.

"You wear a mask, Robin, which means sometimes you can take it off." Bruce laid a hand on Dick's shoulder. "Enjoy it. It's not a luxury all your friends have."

"You want me to make civilian friends?" He asked, carefully.

"I don't think your team would mind if you had a little more support to fall back on. I know I wouldn't." Bruce let his hand fall to his side once again.

Dick scratched the back of his head, frowning. "But, civilians..."

"Many of the people in there your age come from very strict families with the money and influence to give their punishments weight. I won't force you to make friends, but do you really think in a room of kids weighed down by responsibilities and discipline most adults lack, you won't find anyone to relate to?" The elevator doors opened. "Think on it."

Dick walked out with Bruce into the party, guests splitting to let them pass on their path to Gabriel Agreste.

"Bruce Wayne, Richard Grayson, I'm glad you could make it," he greeted, none of the energy in his words reaching his voice. "Perhaps it is uncouth to ask, but do you know if Batman received my message?"

"I made sure it got to him," Bruce said, with a suave grin. "Can't say what he thought of the offer, though. Man's got a poker face to beat, I'll tell you that much." He always put on an act during these events, big and loud and rich, the opposite of Batman's quiet, calculated, terror. Already, Dick felt himself suppressing a yawn. The only times these gatherings weren't incredibly boring were when they got attacked, and that would disrupt the point of this particular venture.

"Well, if he contacts you, send the message along. I've already got the preliminary designs for new suits already drawn up." Even talking about the job he loved, Gabriel sounded bored. For a fashion designer, the man seemed to lack any life or flair at all. "Enjoy the party."

The duo split, Bruce to find his contact into the activities of Ra's Al Ghul, and Dick to... make some friends, he guessed.

His eyes lingered on the rock wall and ropes course, but he forced them away after a few moments. No one was looking for Robin among these teens, but he wasn't one to take reckless chances in any case. He maneuvered his way to the snack bar and picked up an expensive pastry, retiring to some corner to eat it. It had been quiet lately and his friends had insisted they could survive without him for a few days, but still...

He'd rather be with the Titans.

"Not big on parties?" A voice interrupted his brooding and he looked over to see a blonde haired boy, shirt untucked, but looking so natural it almost seemed like it was designed to be worn that way.

"It's a bit... much," Dick decided after a few moments.

The boy scratched the back of his head, looking around. "I know, right? I would way rather it just be a small group of friends watching a movie or something."

Dick thought back to the Titans, probably doing that right then. "Yeah, a couple snacks, some banter, maybe cake afterwards?"

The boy flashed him a grin, extending a hand. "Looks like we're on the same page, mon ami. Adrien Agreste."

"Dick Grayson." He took the hand. "So this is your party, then?"

Adrien rolled his eyes. "My father's party, more like. He doesn't... approve of my friend group in Paris. Put all this together so I could 'properly socialize'. I'm pretty sure he thinks any girl that shows an interest in me is a gold digger."

"What do you think?" Dick asked.

Adrien laughed. "I think I have way too little time to think about dating. How about you, anyone special?"

Dick felt a little heat in his collar when he thought about Starfire, letting a smirk slip past. "Back home, and yeah, she's definitely special." After a few moments, he shook himself from his reverie. "What's wrong with your friends from Paris?"

"Nothing's wrong with them," Adrien said quickly. "They're just a few too many tax brackets short for my dad's taste, if you know what I mean. Except Chloe, but she's got her own problems to deal with."

"Chloe?" To be honest, Dick wasn't particularly interested in Adrien's life story, but he'd take anything that made the party go by faster.

"She's the mayor's daughter. We've been friends for forever, but sometimes she makes it hard," he winced. "And it's only gotten worse since Hawkmoth."

"Hawkmoth?" Now Robin was interested. Hawkmoth wasn't a normal name, which meant odds were good it was a-

"Supervillain," Adrien confirmed. "He has these evil butterflies that twist someone's emotions into evil when they're upset." He sighed. "They also get superpowers. It's a mess."

Dick quirked an eyebrow. "That sounds like a problem. Why haven't I heard of it before now?"

"Paris is a long way from America. Besides, Ladybug and Chat Noir can usually take care of things before they get out of hand."

Now those names, he had heard of. "The Parisian superheroes, right? Doesn't one of them have some kind of reset power?"

"Ladybug, yes." Dick didn't miss the way Adrien's eyes shone with admiration. "Her lucky charm reverses most of the damage after cleansing an akuma."

So there were limits to it. That was a shame, having a reset button handy would be invaluable for most fights. "Sounds like you're a fan."

"How could I not be?" He asked, really smiling for the first time in the conversation. "She's strong, brave, clever. She puts up with puns and she always saves the day."

Dick raised an eyebrow. Puts up with puns? "And here I thought you were too busy to think about dating."

Adrien laughed. "My Lady is always the exception." After a moment, he seemed to have heard what he just said and stopped laughing, growing pale. "Ladybug, I mean," he said, hurriedly.

Interesting, Dick thought. Before he could press further, though, Adrien was grabbed by a small army of girls and taken away to do selfies.

Unable to help his curiosity, Dick typed the words 'Ladybug and Chat Noir' into his phone's search engine and carefully slid away to begin watching videos.

  
  


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It wasn't a particularly long conversation. "Hey, kid you busy?"

Peter Parker frantically began putting on his Spiderman suit as he answered. "No, Mister Stark. I'm ready to go, whatever it is. Is it aliens again?" He paused a second then shook his head. "No, don't tell me. It doesn't matter. I'll fight aliens any day of the week. I-"

"Calm down, kid," Tony Stark laughed. "Nothing to fight, I was wondering if you were busy 'cause there's a party. Thought you might want to go."

Peter sat down on his bed, no longer worried about an alien invasion, but no more calm than before. "A party? Like an Avengers party?"

"No, this is more on the Tony Stark side of things." He clarified. "You game?"

Peter couldn't say yes fast enough, and after clearing it with his Aunt, he found himself dressed in an impeccably tailored suit in a limousine with Tony whipping their way down the road.

"So what is this party?" Peter asked eventually, sipping on a juicebox from the limo's bar.

"An old friend's throwing a party for his son. He's about your age and the invite said I could bring someone, so I figured why not?" Tony said, breezily, sunglasses on, flipping through his smartphone.

"What's his son like?" If it was an old friend of Tony's, that meant either very rich, very sciency, or very R rated, and considering the expensive suits they were wearing, it was easy to guess which one this was.

Tony shrugged. "Not sure. Haven't seen the guy in years, ever since..." he grew quiet for a moment, before explaining. "His wife died a while back and he kind of shut down, began burying himself in work. This was about the same time I went off the deep end a bit, too, so I never really followed up. But if he's throwing the kid a birthday party, that's something, right? Maybe he's on the mend."

So this whole party thing was mostly an excuse so Tony could check up on his friend? That was okay, Peter thought. As long as he could help out Mister Stark, it didn't really matter what the mission was, old friends or aliens.

The limousine stopped. "Are we here?"

Tony waved a hand? "At the party? No, that's in Paris. This is just the jet that's gonna take us there."

Peter nodded his head, only slightly bemused. Of course the party was in Paris, this was Mister Stark they were talking about here. Wait, Paris was in France. "Mister Stark, I can't speak French-"

The jet ride was over almost before he knew it, and shortly after, a seperate limousine took them to the building.

"Tony Stark, with Godson," he said to the bouncers and he let them in without any fuss, stepping into the golden elevators and pressing the button for the top floor.

The scene that greeted them was incredible. In the corner, an enormous chocolate fountain stood, with all manner of fruits and cakes to dip into it. Soda machines lined one wall, all free of charge, and a buffet lined the walls end to end.

Video games were set up in a personal movie theatre in a side room. A DJ was in the corner blasting music for where there was still inexplicably room for a dance floor.

"This is amazing," Peter enthused, head swiveling trying to take it all in at once.

"It's something alright," Tony mumbled under his breath. "Can you see Gabe? He'll probably be the only one in here wearing something different."

After a few moments, Peter spotted him and pointed him out. "Wow, that suit's really white." It almost shone in the light. "I guess he's not worried about staining."

"He's probably got an army of attendants to get him into a new one as fast as possible if something happens. The guy makes more suits than me, though his are objectively less useful in combat." With that wisecrack, the pair made their way toward the host, and made their introductions.

"I had heard you're a superhero now," Gabriel's face was touched with amusement for a moment. "How is that treating you?"

"Long hours, no hazard pay, and a lot of lectures from aliens, suprisingly. I do get my own action figures, though, so it's not all bad," Tony recounts facetiously.

"Well, as one with a vested interest in the planet remaining unconquered by aliens, you have my thanks," Gabriel said and despite his voice not changing, it almost sounded sardonic, cynical, somehow.

Tony turned to Peter, his expression plastic. "Hey, I'm just gonna be catching up with Gabe, here, so you can go and enjoy the party, alright?"

Peter gave a salute and slipped away, giving them privacy. That was... weird. Mister Stark's old friend kind of sounded like a villain, with that cold sarcasm. Peter shook the thought away. He was probably just having a bad day. Though, if he was a villain, Peter was glad he brought the Spiderman suit just in case.

Tony had recommended against putting it on under the suit, since red and blue tended to show through white shirts, but that didn't stop him from folding it really tightly and putting it in those deep suit pockets.

Peter looked around the room again, this time looking at the people instead of the things. You know, come to think of it, a lot of those billionaires looked like villains to him, so he was probably overreacting about Gabriel Agreste.

"Hey, you ever been to one of these before?" Someone asked, tapping him on the shoulder. When he turned around he saw a black haired boy point behind him with a thumb. "I'm trying to figure out if there's a rule for what you can put in the chocolate fountain."

Oh, good, he was speaking English. Despite Tony's earlier assurances, Peter had noticed quite a few people speaking in French to each other, especially the kids. "No, this is my first time doing anything like this," he confessed, extending a hand. "Peter Parker."

The boy took it, amiably. "Danny Fenton. My 'uncle' dragged me here in exchange for a favor, so I'm just messing around until it's time to go home. You know this Adrien kid?"

"No, his dad is one of Mister Stark's old friends, so he mostly came to see him," Peter explained, taking what exactly the quotation marks around 'uncle' meant and putting it on the back burner.

"Mister Stark? Like Tony Stark?" Peter nodded and Danny laughed. "Tucker's gonna freak. He's a huge tech nerd."

"Hey, hey, hey, let's not be down on tech nerds, here," Peter said, half-jokingly.

Danny waved a hand. "No, Tucker's one of my best friends. Don't even worry about it." After a moment's pause, he gestured behind him again. "You wanna start dipping things in the chocolate fountain until someone tells us to stop?"

It wasn't a particularly long conversation. "Dude, what are we still doing here? Let's go."

The pair retired to the chocolate fountain, testing the limits of authority and good taste with their combinations.

Meanwhile, a certain magician entered the elevator on the first floor and began his steady ascent. He adjusted his gloves, then his hat, preparing for his greatest performance yet.

  
  


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Adrien Agreste locked the bathroom stall, thankful for the moment of privacy he had, however brief. These big parties always made him anxious, and after becoming Chat Noir it only got worse.

At any moment, anywhere in Paris, Hawkmoth could be using his Akuma butterflies to create monsters from innocent civilians. It could have already happened, and he would have no way of knowing about it.

He checked the Ladyblog to see if Alya's budding journalist tendencies (and tendency to put herself in danger when she saw an Akuma just to report on it) had turned up any more sightings, and relaxed slightly when they hadn't.

Still, even if there were a sighting, he'd be hard-pressed to get away to help. It took some serious convincing just to convince his father to host the party in Paris, and with the way he kept getting jumped by opportunistic debutantes, leaving the party stealthily was not an option. Unless the Akuma walked into the building and attacked the party, Ladybug would be flying solo that night.

"Are you done moping yet?" Plagg asked, leaving his coat pocket to float in the air beside him.

"It's not moping. I'm worried about Ladybug," Adrien corrected.

"You're moping," Plagg reasserted. "You're moping cause you don't like parties, and you're using Ladybug as an excuse."

"I like parties just fine," Adrien snapped. "It's just this one that's driving me crazy." 

Plagg raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with this one?"

"What's wrong?" Adrien repeated, disbelievingly. "How about, they're blasting the music too loud, or maybe how everyone in the room is wearing too much perfume, or what about how I can't walk two steps without being ambushed by people who only want to talk to me because of my father?" He sighed, slumping against the wall. "I don't know. I've been to big parties like this before, but they've never bothered me this much."

Plagg scratched the back of his head with a paw, looking away. "Okay, so that kinda might partially be my fault."

Adrien frowned. "Explain."

"Well, you're getting more acclimated to your Miraculous, which is great news since it means you're more in tune with all the knowledge and skills the previous Chat Noirs had when you're transformed." The kwami hesitated until Adrien started tapping his foot impatiently. "But, it also means you're more connected to the cat side of the Miraculous, as a side effect."

"Side effect?" That didn't sound good.

"Well it's supposed to help your hero work. Enhanced senses let you detect danger from farther away, balance helps your climbing, a cats diet will ensure you have the right nutrients for-"

Adrien groaned. "A cat's diet? You're saying I'm gonna start craving tuna from a can now?"

"Hey, it's only a possibility," Plagg said, defensively. "It takes most Chat Noirs years to become acclimated enough to start experiencing these connections, and they're always a little different from person to person. My guess is you were already naturally leaning toward a few catlike traits and the Miraculous just gave you a little push."

Adrien shook his head, opening the door and walking out of the bathroom. "I can't deal with this right now."

He took three steps before stopping. Wasn't there music playing a moment ago? Come to think of it, even the rumble of conversation from all the guests had completely disappeared. Adrien pressed his back against the wall to take a look, but he already suspected the cause.

When he saw a blue-skinned magician shuffling a deck of cards in the now nearly empty room, he felt a pit in his stomach as that confirmed it. He had to be an Akuma.

He looked all around the room, staying out of sight of the apparent magician. No statues, no minions, no bubbles floating in the sky, whatever he'd done to the people, it was subtler than most Akuma.

After a moment, Adrien did see people, though. It seemed the Akuma had left a small group of children untouched and Adrien watched as they went around the room at his behest gathering whatever articles of value the adults had dropped. Jewelry, smartphones, wallets, all went into the Akuma's bottomless magician's cap.

A thief? Odd. Most of the Akumas had some personal vendetta to accomplish. Still, he couldn't let it distract him and... did that kid just disappear? "Okay, getting close to the weirdness quota."

"Speak for yourself," Plagg huffed. "I could take way more weirdness."

Adrien facepalmed, shaking his head for a moment before punching an arm into the air. "Plagg, claws out."

He felt the familiar power of the transformation wash over him as he created his mask, ears, claws, tail, and more thanks to Plagg's magic.

"I hope you're not the magician's assistant," a sarcastic voice came from behind him, and he spun quickly to face a floating boy with silver hair wearing a black and white jumpsuit.

"Are you a Miraculous holder?" Chat asked, still crouched defensively. He couldn't tell which animal he could be, but he didn't seem like an Akuma. Still, there was something about the floating boy that made the cat superhero's hair stand on end.

The boy blinked. "I don't know what that is. Should I take that to mean you're not teaming up with David Lame over there?" He asked, gesturing to the magician.

Chat smirked, standing up and flipping his staff so it rested on his shoulder. "My partner's a little easier on the eyes," he answered, a gross understatement. "She wears bright red spandex, so if you see her, let me know. This guy's an Akuma, which means we won't be able to beat him without her."

Chat felt something soft hit the back of his head. He turned around and looked down to see a paper airplane. Carefully opening it, he read the message within, written in strict black marker. 'Distract villain. Get kids out. Backup incoming.'

"Well, that's better than my plan," the floating boy remarked. "And before you start calling me Inviso-Bill, the name is Phantom. Danny Phantom," he introduced himself, extending a hand.

"Chat Noir," he took it, then turned back to the kids moving around the room. That message... could one of those teens be Ladybug? He shook his head. That didn't matter right then. "I'll distract. You get them out. Sound good?"

"Let's do this," Danny agreed, turning invisible even as Chat stepped out into the light.

"Show's over, Akuma," he shouted, and the magician turned suddenly to look at the brazen black cat. "This is your last paw-formance."

"That was a stretch, even for me," Danny commented invisibly off to the side.

"The show may be over, but I'm always ready for an encore," the villain cried, taking a wand out of his coat and pointing it at Chat. "Mumbo jumbo." With that, he supposed, incantation, a bolt of lightning shot from the wand that Chat nimbly dodged. Looking back at where it struck, he frowned at the decorative basket of orchids that now resembled a bunny rabit made from the expensive plants.

Oh good. A transforming Akuma. Personally, Chat ranked those slightly above statue Akumas and solidly below mind control Akumas in terms of unpleasantness. They were not fun to deal with.

"Mumbo Jumbo," he repeated, waving the wand again, and started firing bursts of the transformative lightning as Chat ducked and dodged.

In the background, he could see Danny Phantom phasing civilians through the floor into the level below, but he couldn't focus on that.

"It's curtains for you," the villain shouted, aiming up and transforming the metal curtainrod so the thick fabric could land right on top of the fast moving feline.

"Silly Akuma," Chat chuckled. "Cats shred curtains." Putting action to the words, Chat easily tore through them with his claws, standing up again, but freezing when he stared right into the wand, mere inches from his face.

"Misdirection," the villain said, snidely. "That's what magicians do."

Two steel-reinforced boots kicked off the magician's face with a deadly force, sending him flying into the far wall. "They're not the only ones," the boots' owner replied.

Chat looked at the newcomer appraisingly. Spiky black hair, domino mask, and an outfit in bright red, green, and yellow, complete with cape. He almost looked more like a circus performer than a superhero, but the serious expression on his face belied that, somewhat.

"Who are you?" Danny asked, becoming visible again to stand beside Chat.

"Give it a second," he said with a smirk. "If my guess is right, we've got one more guest incoming."

True to his word, another superhero dressed in bright red spandex burst through the door, front flipping to stand beside the newcomer. "Okay, I'm here. I'm here. What'd I miss?"

"Uh...?" Danny held a hand up turning to Chat.

Chat looked at him, then the newcomer and shook his head. "Funny coincidence, but no. My Lady is bug-themed."

"Oh, I'm Spiderman," he introduced himself

Chat scratched his head. "Well, My Lady also swings through the air on tiny thread."

Spiderman shot a web to the ceiling and swung over to Chat. "Like that?"

"What's this?" The Akuma called as he extracted himself from the rubble, unharmed. "A new audience? What do you call this one? Titans West?"

Chat leveled a glare at Spiderman. "This isn't over."

"Wait a second," Danny interrupted, pointing at the red green and yellow superhero. "Are you Robin from the Teen Titans?"

Robin blinked. "Normally, most people recognize me as Batman's sidekick."

"Dude," Danny smacked his hand to his head, a beaming smile affixed firmly to his face. "I binged a ton of videos of you guys fighting when I was first figuring out the hero thing. You're kind of my idol."

"Mumbo Jumbo." Another bolt of transforming electricity shrieked past as the assembled heroes dodged in different directions.

"Oh, right, the villain," Spiderman said.

Chat landed first, jumping toward the villain to draw his fire. "The Akuma's gotta be in his wand. If we separate him from it, he won't be able to do much until Ladybug gets here."

"He's not an Akuma," Robin differed. "This is a villain I faced back in Jump City, named-"

"Mumbo Jumbo." Chat dodged another blast.

"Yeah, that," Robin continued. "He's got more than a few tricks up his sleeve, but break his wand and he loses all the smoke and mirrors."

Chat frowned, skeptically. "Are you sure that's not an Akuma? It sounds an awful lot like it."

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but don't your Akuma's speak French?" Robin asked.

Chat shrugged. "You got me there." He turned back to the villain, leather tail flicking from side to side in expectation. "So what do you say, Mumbo? Care for a game of cat and mouse?"

"I prefer fifty-two pickup," he answered with a maniacal laugh as playing cards began shooting from his sleeves with dangerous speed. "Or should I say fifty-two cutup?"

Chat began spinning his staff, blocking the projectiles. "Uh, guys? Any ideas?"

Robin stood beside him, spinning his own staff in much the same way, and turning to almost imperceptibly mouth the words, 'buy time.'

Chat grinned. After all, that was his specialty.

The two acrobats dodged cards, magic spells, and at one point a particularly handsy pair of gloves before finally Mumbo's wand was snatched from his grip by a line of web made invisible with Danny's powers.

Danny snapped the wand, Spiderman webbed the now normal thief to the wall, and Chat Noir and Robin got a well-earned rest.

"Where are the other guests?" Robin interrogated Mumbo, his voice brokering no argument.

"Well don't look at me, it was this mirror, see? Indestructible by you or me." Mumbo explained and Danny retrieved a strange mirror with arcane glyphs around it. Inside, the four superheroes could see the adult guests pounding on the glass in their private little mirror world.

"Well, how do we get them out?" Spiderman asked. "Is there, like, a magic spell or something?"

"More or less," Robin confirmed, passing it off to Chat. "If you don't mind, I'd prefer the black cat take the seven years bad luck."

With a smirk of understanding, Chat raised his hand. "Cataclysm," he shouted, bringing it down on the mirror and watching it shatter.

Mumbo gasped. "What is this? How can it be? To break the glass so easily?"

"Was he rhyming before?" Spiderman asked. "I'm confused. Shouldn't he have been rhyming while a magician, then stopped when his powers went away? I don't get it."

"Magicians don't rhyme, though," Danny pointed out.

Spiderman shrugged. "In that case, now I'm more confused than ever."

The shards of broken mirror began to smoke and from the smoke, the party guests reappeared. Chat's ring beeped, one of the pads disappearing marking four minutes before he'd have to change back. "Well, gentlemen. I think that's our cue."

The superheroes scattered in different directions, escaping any questions from the newly rescued adults, and a few minutes later, four teens rejoined the crowd, meeting up with their respective guardians.

The party was called early, everyone caught their flights home, and it wasn't until Adrien was back in his room, changing into his pajamas he noticed a note in his suit trouser pocket. He picked it up and unfolded it, feeling his stomach drop at the foreboding message. At the top was a link to some website he'd never heard of, and at the bottom were three simple words.

'I know. -Robin'

Ignoring the heaviness in his body, Adrien maneuvered his way to the computer in the dark, turning it on and carefully typing in the link in the note, coming across a prompt to create a username.

What should he say? Something about Chat Noir? That seemed to be what the note was saying, but it was also incredibly vague. Was it a bluff? Better to pick something more neutral, just in case.

'Lucky,' he typed. Perfect.

He pressed enter and blinked at the screen.

'Lucky has joined the chat.'


	2. Half Windsor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the group chat begins. For anyone wondering about Danny, these are all the typos I normally make writing these stories, just not fixed. I primarily write on my phone, and I have very sloppy thumbs.

Robin has created the chat, Experimental Group Chat.

Lucky has joined the chat.

Peter B has joined the chat.

Lucky: Is this some American club I've just been invited to?

Peter B: i got a note

Peter B: did anyone else get a note?

Ghostboy has joined the chat.

Ghostboy: I got a note

Robin: I gave each of you a note because I suspect you are the civilian identities of Danny Phantom, Chat Noir, and Spiderman. Am I wrong?

Ghostboy: Why is it every time I leave town someonr figures out my secret idnentity?

Peter B: maybe its a sign

Peter B: wait is this all people at that party?

Peter B: spy.jpeg

Peter B: it could be any one of us

Ghostboy: Well youre spiderman

Ghostboy: You put your real name as your username

Lucky: Also, you walked in with Iron Man, which was kind of a giveaway.

Robin: I don't think you can really talk about codenames, Danny...

Peter B: WAIT A SECOND

Peter B: DANNY PHANTOM

Peter B: DANNY FENTON

Peter B: IM SUCH AN IDIOTGAFGAGBEJEIDHE

Lucky: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say @Robin is Dick Grayson

Robin: I figured you'd notice, Adrien Agreste.

Lucky: Yeah, kinda bricked it with the Ladybug thing, huh?

Robin: Actually, my first clue was you mentioning you had no time. I'd been listening to some of the chatter around the room and the general sentiment was that you were some kind of rebellious layabout, but meeting you in person didn't click with that image. Rebellious, maybe, but you seemed far more disciplined than the picture being painted, and if you weren't spending your time improving your image, I began to wonder what you were doing. The more personal comments you made about Ladybug were a solid lead, but I didn't fit it all together until I saw your reaction to...  
Keep Reading:

Peter B: jesus christ

Ghostboy: How did you write like a whole english paper in less than a minute

Ghostboy: Better question why did you do that?

Lucky: You noticed all that?

Robin: Former sidekick of the world's greatest detective here...

Lucky: Right, that's fair.

Ghostboy: So noe we all know each others secret identitties whats the point of bringing us all together like this? Are you boulding a tean?

Peter B: turn spellcheck on

Lucky: Or just proofread your messages.

Ghostboy: Whos got that kind of time?

Robin: I already have a team, this is more of a... collective resource. At a guess, most of you don't have many people who can relate with carrying on a secret identity. I know I don't, at least not in the same way. I thought this could be a place you could ask for advice, talk something out, or just complain to people who probably had very similar experiences.

Ghostboy: So if i said something like

Ghostboy: I wish my archenemy would stop coming into my house and talking to my parents

Ghostboy: Whats anyone supposed to say about that?

Peter B: my problem was more like i was in his house and he was the parent because i was trying to take his daughter to prom

Peter B: that was a weird day not gonna lie

Lucky: I just wish I could get through a single week of school without the school being attacked by supervillains.

Peter B: SAME

Ghostboy: Thats a mood

Ghostboy: Or a week where im not late for class every day because apparemtly no onr i fight has ever heard of a dayjob

Lucky: You know some people in class are actually there before it starts and get to talk to their friends and everything.

Lucky: Or at least that's what I hear because I am NEVER one of them.

Peter B: pretty sure my teachers think i have a stomach condition that forces me to disappear into the bathroom for a few hours every time a monster attacks

Ghostboy: At whay point do we get our own bathroom pass tho

Ghostboy: Pretty sure were keepint that industry alive all by ourselves

Lucky: I'd kinda like my own pass, actually. I know no one knows all the work I do for Paris, but I feel like I deserve it.

Peter B: dude not getting paid sucks too

Peter B: i don't even care about not getting the recognition (like it'd be nice but) just please tip your spiderman some cash so he can get coffee tomorrow morning cause he was up all night busting bankrobbers and didn't do his homework

Lucky: If I have a ton of homework due the next day, there will be an Akuma attack. It's not even something I'll bet on anymore, it's every time.

Ghostboy: I think at some point when they realized they couldnt kill us they just decided to make sure we dont graduate

Robin: Trying to take over the city is one thing, but that's crossing the line.

Peter B: like that but no sarcasm

Ghostboy: Wait why are you complaining about money? Arent you like starks son or whayever?

Peter B: ironmanstonks.png

Peter B: but no im his godson and my aunt flat out vetoed him giving me money

Peter B: im a broke boi

Ghostboy: Well now I feel a little better about being here i thought everyonr was super rich but me

Robin: Turns out it's just half of us.

Ghostboy: I dont need your lip batboy

Robin: shrug.gif

Lucky: So Peter came in with Stark, but how did you get into the party if your family isn't wealthy? I'm pretty sure that was my father's whole point was for me to meet other rich kids at the party.

Ghostboy: My dads old college friend is this dude named vlad masters

Ghostboy: Super rich super evil and super obsessed with my mom

Ghostboy: Hes also half ghost like me so hes pretty much my archenemy. Definitely one of the toughest guys ive ever fought

Ghostboy: Anyway i owed him a favor so he basically used me qs a pass into the party

Lucky: That's rough. My archenemy's usually a lot less face to face.

Robin: Tell me about it.

Peter B: i dont really have an archenemy right now per se mostly im just fighting regular dudes sometimes with crazy alien tech

Ghostboy: Youd better watch what you say

Ghostboy: Robins dating a crazy alien

Peter B: whoah no offense dude

Robin: He was joking...

Robin: And she's not crazy!

Lucky: Are you actually dating an alien?

Robin: We're not really dating, but she is an alien.

Peter B: all i can picture is chitauri right now

Ghostboy: No shes smoking hot

Robin: Danny!

Ghostboy: What?

Robin: That's my teammate you're talking about there.

Lucky: raven.png

Lucky: Is this the one?

Robin: What? No, that's Raven, we're just friends.

Lucky: Just looked it up and quite a few people seem to think otherwise

Lucky: She's also the most beautiful, but I have a thing for blue haired superheroes that might be skewing the curve here

Robin: ...

Robin: You're wrong, but ok.

Peter B: hey guys i just realized something

Peter B has changed the name of Experimental Group Chat to THE BLACK TUX GANG

Peter B: I HAVE ADMIN PRIVILEGES BIIIIISSSSHH

Robin: Oh, god.

Ghostboy: Whose idea qas this again?

Lucky: I'm going to bed


	3. Trinity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, was not expecting this kind of response. Thanks, everyone for reading and commenting. If I haven't replied to your comment yet, it's probably because I'm blushing too hard.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy these wackamoles.

Peter B changed name to Stark Jr

Ghostboy changed name to Astronut

Lucky changed name to Not Spiderman

Stark Jr changed name to Not Chat

Astronut changed name to Which Chat?

Not Spiderman changed name to This Chat

Which Chat? changed name to Oh Okay

Not Chat changed name to Chat Noir

This Chat changed name to No You're Not

Chat Noir changed name to OuiOuiBaguette

No You're Not changed name to Spidertourist

OuiOuiBaguette changed name to MiniAvenger

Spidertourist changed name to Catastrophe

Robin: What happened here?

Oh Okay: Its better not to question it

Oh Okay changed name to Inviso-Bill

Robin: I'll take your word for it.

Robin: My team says hi, by the way.

Catastrophe: Tell Raven hi back

Robin: I absolutely will not.

Catastrophe: Spoilsport

MiniAvenger: yo does anyone know how to treat a bullet wound?

Inviso-Bill: A what wound?

Robin: I am also confused. Laser burns should be treated with cold water and hydrocortisone cream. Wrap gently, and seek help from a trusted medical professional if the burn is severe.

MiniAvenger: not a laser just like a regular bullet from a regular gun

Inviso-Bill: You mean an ecto-gun?

MiniAvenger: WHAT PART OF REGULAR GUN IS CONFUSING

Catastrophe: Let's stick a pin in whatever their problem is. YOU GOT SHOT? WHO SHOT YOU?

MiniAvenger: i dunno just a regular bankrobber dude

Robin: Have you figured out who their supplier is? There could be another mastermind supplying them with weapons.

Inviso-Bill: Yeah thats what froot loop did with a girl i know named valerie

MiniAvenger: they prob bought it from a store these guys were not mastermind material

Robin: What kind of store sells laser weapons to random citizens?

MiniAvenger: okay i dont know how i havent gotten this across so here it goes

MiniAvenger: THESE ARE REGULAR GUNS NOT LASER GUNS ECTO GUNS OR MAGIC GUNS

Catastrophe: I was about to ask what store would sell criminals regular guns, but then I remembered you live in America

MiniAvenger: you better watch yourself i can change my name back any time

Catastrophe: Quick question, why can't you just go to the hospital?

MiniAvenger: and have them ask how i got shot then tell my aunt may? pass

Inviso-Bill: Uh what about stark

Inviso-Bill: Hes gotta have a perspnal doctor rught?

MiniAvenger: ...

MiniAvenger: im an idiot

Robin: I'm so glad this resource is available so you can realize that.

Inviso-Bill: You didnt think of that?!?

MiniAvenger: i got shot! besides you really want me to go through the rundown here?

MiniAvenger: @Robin you got someone who uses space magic to heal everyones wounds

MiniAvenger: @Catastrophe you got someone who uses bug magic to fix any damage after you beat the bad guy

MiniAvenger: @Inviso-Bill you got ghost magic that makes it so you can literally phase through any attack

MiniAvenger: and this is news to me now

MiniAvenger: APPARENTLY IM THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS SHOT WITH REAL GUNS

Inviso-Bill: I use ghost science for the record

Catastrophe: Do you know how it works?

Inviso-Bill: No clue

Catastrophe: Then how do you know it's not magic?

Inviso-Bill: ...

Inviso-Bill: yougotmethere.jpeg

Catastrophe: Wait, isn't Batman not using guns a big deal? How does @Robin not know what a gun is?

Robin: Obviously, Batman made a vow never to use laser guns.

Catastrophe: Obviously

Inviso-Bill: Hey unrelated but does anyone sometimes wish they hadnt told their best friends about their superhero identity?

MiniAvenger: what do you mean

Inviso-Bill: My friends are great and i definitely couldnt have gotten this far without them but sometikes it feels like the ghost stuff is all we ever talk about

Inviso-Bill: At one point i actually made friends with a girl in my class and it was zo refreshing to actually talk about something rlse for a change before she had yo cut it off because of more ghost stuff

Inviso-Bill: I mean geeze ghost talk twenty four seven i feel like im becoming my parents

Catastrophe: I'm gonna have to pass this off to someone else. The only one who knows I'm Chat Noir besides you guys is the one who gave me my powers and I hardly even see him

Robin: Not even Ladybug knows?

Catastrophe: Nope. She's actually the one who wanted to keep our identities secret even from each other. It's been... hard.

MiniAvenger: @Inviso-Bill i know what you mean

MiniAvenger: i have normal convos with my friend ned all the time but i always wish mister stark would talk to me about something other than heroing once in a while

MiniAvenger: like i know the only reason he knows me at all is because of the spiderman thing but i wish we could move past that a little

Robin: I guess I can't be too surprised by Ladybug's reluctance. My team doesn't know my civilian identity, either.

Inviso-Bill: Exactly like i already have to deal with beinf attacked and randomly phasing through things why do mu friends have to constamtly remind me im a superhero

Catastrophe: What? How? Don't you live in the same house?

MiniAvenger: its crazy sometimes ill see him call and freak out cause i think he needs backup for something

MiniAvenger: you see any of those vids from ny of the avengers tearing up a huge army of aliens?

MiniAvenger: pretty sure theres no way i can do that

Catastrophe: Oh, yeah, fighting an army sucks, for sure. Sometimes it seems like every other Akuma can make a huge army of possessed people

Robin: The Titans Tower is a bit bigger than a house, and my room's security is patterned after the Batcave. Trust me. No one's finding out my identity if I don't want them to.

Inviso-Bill: Maybe i just need a vacation 

Inviso-Bill @MiniAvenger hows new yrok this time of year

MiniAvenger: cold and full of guns

Inviso-Bill: Thats fair

Catastrophe: You could always come back to Paris. Here, it's cold and full of Akumas

Robin: Jump City is actually unseasonably warm right now.

Inviso-Bill: Then its settled

Inviso-Bill: Guess im heading to jump

Robin: Bad plan. Very bad plan.

Inviso-Bill: gee rob tell me how you really feel

Robin: I don't know what kind of support you have back home, but I doubt it's at a level you can randomly skip town when you want to.

Inviso-Bill: Okay youve got a point

Inviso-Bill: That sucks though i want a titans tower tour at some point

MiniAvenger: i mean im pretty free

MiniAvenger: what if i went where danny lives and kind of cover his shift?

MiniAvenger: boom instant vacation

Catastrophe: New York won't miss Spiderman just disappearing for a while?

MiniAvenger: well yeah a bit but its not like thats never happened before

MiniAvenger: i don't really have any excuses for my aunt or school why i prefer sticking around ny so i take trips out of town all the time

MiniAvenger: heck we all met in paris so our superhero stuff cant be completely time consuming

Catastrophe: I live in Paris, though

MiniAvenger: youre excused

Robin: This might be a stupid question. @Inviso-Bill don't you mostly fight ghosts?

Inviso-Bill: Yea

Robin: @MiniAvenger does your webbing trap ghosts?

MiniAvenger: ill go with probably not on that one

Robin: Guess it wasn't a stupid question after all.

Inviso-Bill: Alright smart guy whats your plan?

Robin: If, and only if, any kind of 'covering shifts' happened, we'd have to do it in such a way that we could actually accomplish each other's roles. With all the ghost tech available, I would probably be the best choice for Amity Park. On the other hand, with Adrien's transformation limit, he'd be better off in situations that didn't require extended time, like New York. Danny probably has the most experience besides me in leading, so he might be able to fill my role with the Titans. While Peter's animal motif and ease of city travel would allow him to fit in nicely fighting Akumas.

MiniAvenger: did you come up with all that just now?

Robin: Actually, I came up with all that before I even started the groupchat.

Catastrophe: Well, I don't know about you guys, but to me it sounds like a great idea

Inviso-Bill: Agreed

Robin: What?

MiniAvenger: yeah what?

Catastrophe: We've got some time off for school coming up, so what about a good old super-switcheroo?

Robin: What?

Inviso-Bill: Well meet up sometime so we can show each other the ropes then when spring break comes ill go to jump robin will go to amity adrien will go to ny and peter will go to paris

Robin: What?

MiniAvenger: that sounds awesome

MiniAvenger: wait i cant speak french

MiniAvenger: okay karen says she can translate

MiniAvenger: so were all good

Robin changed name to What?

Catastrophe: I'll have to check it with Ladybug, but this isn't the first time I've had to leave town and at least I'm leaving behind some extra help this time around

What?: When did I lose control, here?

Inviso-Bill: I think thisll be good for us

What?: I think I'm going to lie down.


	4. Kipper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to the Black Tux Gang, where updating takes two months, despite the fact these chapters are only slightly longer than Robin's new calculated life expectancy after inviting chaos into his relatively serene superhero life.
> 
> Don't feel bad. He did it to himself.

MiniAvenger changed name to ChatsReplacement

ChatsReplacement: @Catastrophe this hotel room is huge how big is your allowance?

Catastrophe: Don't have an allowance. The room is actually a favor from my friend Chloe. You should be meeting with her pretty soon.

Catastrophe: Fair warning, she can be a bit... abrasive, sometimes.

ChatsReplacement: no worries im used to it from mj

ChatsReplacement: oh get ned to introduce you to mj

Catastrophe: Does she know you're Spiderman?

ChatsReplacement: i really hope not

ChatsReplacement: shes cool tho so you should meet her while youre in town

What? changed name to GhostRobin

GhostRobin: @Inviso-Bill Your family is interesting. (edited)

Inviso-Bill: Wait i just logged on what did it say before

GhostRobin: ...

Inviso-Bill: WHAT DID IT SAY BEFORE

Catastrophe: So is everyone set up now, got everything they need?

Inviso-Bill: ROBIN

ChatsReplacement: yep just chilling in the room now

ChatsReplacement: ladybug is super nice btw

Catastrophe: Oh, yeah, she's the best.

Inviso-Bill: Plane just landed waiting for them to open the doors

Inviso-Bill: I coild probably just phase out but im trying to pretend i have a secret identity for a few minutes

GhostRobin: I'm all set up at this point. Your friend Sam has a surprisingly nice house.

Inviso-Bill: Figured you might like that more rhan bunking in my room

Inviso-Bill: Sam had to pull a few parental strings to make it happem tho so she might ask a favor as payback sometime

GhostRobin: Should I be worried?

Inviso-Bill: No. (edited)

GhostRobin: ...

ChatsReplacement: okay so just talked to chloe

ChatsReplacement: i dont even work here and i feel like i just got fired

Catastrophe: She tends to have that effect on people. Try not to take it too hard.

ChatsReplacement: she doesnt actually have the authority to kick me out onto the street if i piss her off does she?

Catastrophe: No, she totally does.

ChatsReplacement: but she wouldnt right?

Catastrophe: I feel like you're focusing on the negatives, here.

Inviso-Bill: @GhostRobin I know you introduced me to everyone when you were showing me around the tower before but seeing them all lined up at the airport is super weird

Inviso-Bill: Trannsfrmed nnd readdy tt go

ChatsReplacement: the heck

Catastrophe: Yeah, that was bad, even for you.

Inviso-Bill: Iiill explln llter

ChatsReplacement: absolutely did not catch that

GhostRobin: "I'll explain later," is the translation, I believe.

Inviso-Bill: Ye

Catastrophe: Well that answers that, I guess.

ChatsReplacement: @Catastrophe what french food should i try while im here?

Catastrophe: My friend's parents run a bakery that's pretty close to the hotel. Their macarons are to die for, really.

ChatsReplacement: ugh

ChatsReplacement: dont like macarons tbh

Catastrophe: First of all, take that back.

Catastrophe: Second of all, I'm assuming the macarons you tried weren't really high quality.

ChatsReplacement: if by that you mean were they in a twenty pack plastic box in the grocery store then yeah

Catastrophe: I'm going to pretend I didn't read that.

GhostRobin: Can anyone explain why the relatively middle class town of Amity Park is able to purchase expensive, questionably legal, technological components seemingly en masse for the purposes of various ghost destruction or capture devices?

Inviso-Bill: I dont know specifically but blaming vlad is standard procedure for questions like that

Inviso-Bill: Oh im back btw

Catastrophe: What even happened, before?

Inviso-Bill: You ever try to use a touchscreen with gloves?

Inviso-Bill: Or with ghost fingers?

Inviso-Bill: Not a good time

ChatsReplacement: oof

Inviso-Bill: Yeah

Inviso-Bill: On the plus side i am now in titand tower which is actually the greatest thing ever

Inviso-Bill: @GhostRobin Is it cool if i walk around not in ghost form?

Inviso-Bill: Like is that rude somehow?

GhostRobin: Why would that be rude?

Inviso-Bill: I dunno everyone else is suited up just feels like im showing up underdressed

GhostRobin: Everyone changes outfits from time to time, usually the suits we fight in are just what we find most comfortable. Really, the most that will probably happen if you turn human is Starfire asking about your hair.

Inviso-Bill: Great cause im actually not sure how long i can go ghost at a time

GhostRobin: You've never tested your powers?

Inviso-Bill: I test my powers

Inviso-Bill: I mean not formally or anything but still

GhostRobin: I'm just gonna go way out on a limb here and guess @Catastrophe and @ChatsReplacement are the same way.

Catastrophe: I'm really more of a learn on the job type.

ChatsReplacement: i did tests at the start but i already know those numbers arent accurate anymore

GhostRobin: Might be a project for later. In the meantime, I've got ecto-enhanced Birdarangs to test.

Catastrophe: Do you actually call them Birdarangs?

GhostRobin: That's their name, so yes. Why?

Catastrophe: I dunno, it's just kind of weird to say.

Catastrophe: Birdarang

GhostRobin: Batman's are called Batarangs, mine are called Birdarangs. What's the problem?

Catastrophe: No problem, just pointing out it sounds weird when you say it out loud.

Catastrophe: Birdarang

Catastrophe: Even spelling it feels weird.

ChatsReplacement: birdarang

ChatsReplacement: oh my god that did feel weird

GhostRobin: I'm just gonna go ahead and mute this chat while I test out these Birdarangs, thank you very much.

Inviso-Bill: Birdarang

Inviso-Bill: Huh

ChatsReplacement: just turned on the news and that definitely looks like an akuma so ill brb

Catastrophe: Yeah, I should probably go on patrol.

Inviso-Bill: Looks like its chill with the titans time for me then

Inviso-Bill: ...

Inviso-Bill changed name to Birdarang


	5. Eldredge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I have accomplished nothing else, I have succeeded in making way too many people laugh at the word 'Birdarang'.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> (Handy dandy username guide)
> 
> Danny - Birdarang  
> Adrien - Catastrophe  
> Robin - GhostRobin  
> Peter - ChatsReplacement

Birdarang: So ive never had a villain just straight up stop their evil plan before

Birdarang: Like that was super weird

Catastrophe: ?

Catastrophe: Explain.

Birdarang: Short version me and the titans were following up all these clues for strange tidal waves and weird seismix signatures and all that junk

Birdarang: Aqualad was there too

Birdarang: And we finally tracked everything down to a warehouse that had a secret underground tunnel leading to a supervillain base with all kinds of traps and robot guards it was great

Birdarang: I got super hyped villain showed up cool mask big speech he had a huge monster and rught before he attacked us with it he asked where @GhostRobin was

Birdarang: We told him you werent there and at first he must have thought we were screwing wuth him but you still didnt show up after he attacked us with the monster so he called it off and literally just left

Birdarang: Honestly never felt so offended by a villain giving up

GhostRobin: This was Slade?

Birdarang: Yeah it was slade

GhostRobin: You didn't tell him I was in Amity Park, did you?

Birdarang: Despite all the ghosts i do still like my town so no

GhostRobin: Good, because he would absolutely take the next jet here.

Birdarang: What did you even do to get him so obsessed with you?

GhostRobin: If I knew the answer to that, I would absolutely tell you.

ChatsReplacement: legit question does ladybug know everyone in paris?

ChatsReplacement: because weve fought like eight akumas and she's known who every single one of them is

ChatsReplacement: well just be fighting some shark dude and shell say oh thats jacques requin from the docks and im like hes a walking shark how can you possibly know that

Catastrophe: I used to think that was part of her superpowers like how I can see in the dark, but no. I'm pretty sure she's just that good.

ChatsReplacement: legend

ChatsReplacement: wait you can see in the dark?

Catastrophe: Only when I'm transformed. It comes up surprisingly not that often.

ChatsReplacement: anyone else got other random superpowers i dont know about?

Birdarang: Dude i dont even know most of my random superpowers

GhostRobin: Hopefully, we can test that.

Birdarang: While were doing that can we find out what the deal is with my and ravens powers?

Birdarang: Cause theyre super similar

GhostRobin: I had considered that, but looking at all the ghost research available here from your parents, the Guys in White, and Vlad Masters, I think it's more coincidence than anything. Raven's abilities function through Azarathean magic, while your and by extension nearly every ghost I've read about's powers are purely biological, with some technology mixed in here and there.

Birdarang: Even desiree?

GhostRobin: Your parents' notes just say 'wish powers' under the section to list her abilities, so I think I'll have to do some independant research, there.

Birdarang: Thats fair

Catastrophe: @ChatsReplacement Can you tell Ladybug that we somehow have fans in America?

Catastrophe: It took her forever to even acknowledge we have fans in Paris, she will absolutely flip when she hears about this.

ChatsReplacement: piiiiiiiiccccssss

Catastrophe: IMG_3137.jpeg

Catastrophe: IMG_3138.jpeg

Catastrophe: This is Alex on the left and Bill on the right. I am leaving Paris forever because they are now my everything.

GhostRobin: Nice Chat Noir shirt.

Catastrophe: Isn't it, though?

ChatsReplacement: is that rhino in the background of the second pic?

Catastrophe: Yeah. So far, he's actually the most Akuma-like villain I've fought here. You won't believe how many Akumas just won't go down, no matter how much you fight them.

ChatsReplacement: im definitely starting to find out

Catastrophe: Oh, ouch. How is that going?

ChatsReplacement: the good news is my critical thinking is way ahead of what it was before

ChatsReplacement: the bad news is when i get back to new york im gonna be afraid to punch anything

ChatsReplacement: something bad always happens when i punch an akuma

ChatsReplacement: 100% of the time

Catastrophe: I mean, Ladybug resets everything after the Akuma's defeated anyway, so it's usually not too bad.

ChatsReplacement: oh yeah getting used to feeling pain after a fight is also gonna suck when i get back

ChatsReplacement: i want to bottle that lucky charm

Catastrophe: Failing that, you try those macarons yet?

ChatsReplacement: fiiiiiine i will

ChatsReplacement: oh you still havent dmed the address to me

Catastrophe: Oops, fixed.

ChatsReplacement: danke

Birdarang: It was starfires turn to make dinner @GhostRobin

Birdarang: Where do yuo keep the antidote

GhostRobin: What was it?

Birdarang: I think she called it stewed nutmeg

GhostRobin: Stewed Gruntmag?

Birdarang: Thats the one

GhostRobin: Go to the garage, there's a blue bottle in the second drawer closest to the door. Do not take what's in the red bottle. Do not open the cage. Do not touch the T Car.

Birdarang: Gotcha

Catastrophe: Okay, but you're not actually allowed to not explain what that means.

GhostRobin: What what means?

Catastrophe: So many things. What's even in the cage, for starters?

GhostRobin: It's either a small alien assassin utilizing cutting edge stealth tech to try and assassinate Starfire, or it's empty.

Catastrophe: I feel like you're messing with me...

GhostRobin: I am. It's just Silkie's carrying case. We keep it closed so it doesn't swing open and trip anyone up.

Catastrophe: I don't know if I should ask about Silkie, all that other weird stuff you said, or the fact you actually made a joke.

ChatsReplacement: WOAH ROBIN MADE A JOKE

Catastrophe: I guess that's out of my hands, then.

GhostRobin: ...

GhostRobin: I've been known to make jokes.

ChatsReplacement: you make snarks

GhostRobin: What's your point?

ChatsReplacement: im just excited

ChatsReplacement: i feel like this is a milestone somehow

GhostRobin: Right...

Birdarang: Silkies this giant moth larva starfore has as a pet

Birdarang: At first it was weird but honestly its grown on me

GhostRobin: Welcome to the club.

ChatsReplacement: we should totally get marinette in here

Catastrophe: We should get my friend from school, who doesn't know my secret identity, and invite her specifically to this group chat where we talk about our secret identities?

ChatsReplacement: i dunno i feel like you should have at least one school friend who knows your secret identity, like the rest of us

GhostRobin: I don't have one of those.

ChatsReplacement: titans are close enough

Catastrophe: I mean, if I was gonna have one of those, Marinette would definitely be my pick. She's a great friend and super reliable. In all the time I've known her, she hasn't been Akumatized once.

GhostRobin: Do people really get Akumatized so often that that's remarkable?

Catastrophe: You have no idea. I'm pretty sure we're the only two people in the entire school that haven't been Akumatized, and that's ignoring a huge chunk of Paris.

GhostRobin: ...

GhostRobin: Hmm...

Catastrophe: Yeah?

Birdarang: You got something to share with the class?

GhostRobin: Maybe later. Ghost portal just got another breach. Time to get to work.

ChatsReplacement: i take back everything i said about macarons btw

Catastrophe: Honestly, the US has a lot of food I really like, but I am missing the Dupain-Cheng bakery, hard.

Birdarang: This your first time in america?

Catastrophe: No, I used to go a bunch when I was little. My father had all kinds of fashion shows here.

Catastrophe: Lately he's been sticking close to Paris, though.

Birdarang: Im glad he let you take the trip

Birdarang: Gotta get you in to see amity park sometime

Catastrophe: Oh, totally. I've never seen a real ghost before.

Birdarang: Believe me we got plenty ot those

GhostRobin: You know, for all the ghost problem this town clearly has, I'm having a lot more trouble dealing with the ghost hunters than the ghosts themselves.

Birdarang: t h i s i s m y l i f e

Birdarang: Valeries the most competent but the guys in white are so beyond the most annoying

GhostRobin: Valerie is...?

Birdarang: Red huntress

GhostRobin: That fits. I think you mentioned Vlad Masters provides her gear?

Birdarang: Originally

Birdarang: Im pretty sure technus did something to upgrade it a while after thoigh

ChatsReplacement: wait why are the ghost hunters going after you though?

ChatsReplacement: HAVE YOU BEEN A GHOST THIS WHOLE TIME

GhostRobin: They're not specifically going after me, but they are explicitly getting in my way.

ChatsReplacement: you didnt deny it

GhostRobin: Guess that means I'm a ghost, then.

ChatsReplacement: i dont know if i appreciate this sass

GhostRobin changed name to SassRobin

ChatsReplacement: okay now i definitely dont appreciate it

Birdarang: Hey we should add the titans to the chat

ChatsReplacement: and ladybug

SassRobin: Right, because the biggest issue with this groupchat is that there just aren't enough people.

Catastrophe: How could you even call it a groupchat with only four people?

Catastrophe: You know what I would call this?

SassRobin: I feel like you're ramping into a pun...

Catastrophe: Please, I would never tell a pun on pawpose.

Birdarang: You had purr right there you know

Birdarang: You could have said purrpose you chose not to

Catastrophe: I'll have you know, when it comes to cat puns...

SassRobin: If you say you're the 'cat's meow,' you're gonna get kicked.

Catastrophe: I'm the kitten's purr. (edited)

SassRobin: You're on thin ice, is what you are.

Birdarang: @SassRobin starfire made glurk scales

SassRobin: Red bottle.

ChatsReplacement: this swap is going great


	6. Bolo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am loving the comment section, you guys. It's fantastic

After facing off against aliens, killer robots, gods, time traveling super soldiers, wizards, giant animals, living people who exploded, and an unreasonable amount of people wearing Iron Man suits he designed, Tony Stark decided he wasn't going to be surprised anymore. There was no aspect of the universe, no concept that was off the table for him to meet and eventually fight. So why waste time on surprise, when he could skip straight to sarcastic quips and dodging energy blasts?

A boy dressed in entirely black leather, complete with matching ears and tail, slammed onto the hood of the car Happy was driving, forcing Tony to look up from his tablet.

Okay, so maybe there were exceptions to the surprise thing.

With a kip up back to his feet that made Tony's core hurt just to look at it, the boy extended a silver staff into the ground, shooting him upwards so he could spin into a devastating kick to the side of Electro's face.

"Happy," Tony began, watching the exchange between the apparent superhero and supervillain. "Did a black leather catboy just fall from the sky?"

"Off the record?" Happy asked.

Tony gave a shrug. "Sure."

"Yes."

The Iron Man slowly absorbed the new information, watching the fight continue until Electro succumbed to blunt force trauma-induced unconsciousness and the boy picked him up with one hand to drop him in front of a nearby police station before shooting away on his silver staff.

With a few taps of his phone, Tony began a call, holding it up to his ear. Honestly, there were far too many people he knew that could be to blame for what he just saw, but somehow only one name came to mind. "Call redirected to suit receiver," Friday informed him.

"Mister Stark?" Since he was picking up from his suit, Tony supposed it was Spiderman that was answering.

Still, "Peter, what did you do?"

There was some muffled French in the background that Tony couldn't immediately parse, though the words 'rescue,' 'fire,' and 'trap,' made concerning appearances.

"Uh, could you be more specific?" Peter asked, sounds of whistling through the air and crashing through glass audible despite the noise-cancelling microphone the suit had.

"Are you in France?" Tony asked suddenly.

There was a pause on the other end that stretched a little too long. "...yes?"

Tony sighed, taking his sunglasses off and rubbing the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Why are you in France?"

"The swap? I sent you an email about it." The evil cackle in the background wasn't difficult to translate from French.

"Did you send it to my work email or personal email?" Tony asked next, as the sounds of what appeared to be jangling chains could be heard from Peter's end.

"Work," Peter confirmed.

So that left, "and you used your work email so it would get past my spam filter, right?"

There was another long pause. "...no?"

"Call me back when you're not in imminent danger," Tony said with a sigh, and with the assurance that he would, the call ended.

"Are we changing destinations, Sir?" Happy asked once the streets began moving again after the brief super-fight.

Tony considered it for a moment, but shook his head. "Nah, the kid's got a handle on it. As long as nothing's on fire, I'll wait on his explanation."

Happy nodded and continued driving in silence for a few minutes.

"Sir?" He asked, eventually.

"Yeah?"

Happy's face was the picture of nervous bemusement. "How do you know nothing's on fire?"

><

Everything was on fire.

For the daughter of two bakery owners, Marinette considered herself well-versed in fire safety. For a superhero with strangely limited experience in fire based Akuma's, on the other hand, it was nice to have someone on deck with slightly more experience in rescuing people from burning buildings.

"Oh, yeah, I'm pretty much an expert on fires. If there's a fire back in New York, you can pretty much guarantee I'm in the middle of it," Spiderman said, a statement Ladybug found only slightly more reassuring than concerning.

She wasn't entirely sure where the fact everything he said went through a synthetic translator because he couldn't speak French tipped the scales.

In any case, Ladybug set Spiderman to rescuing civilians, and went about recruiting Carapace to help with the fight. Something told her having a shield around could be helpful, not just for the fire, but for Spiderman, too.

He tended to get hit... a lot.

Nothing against Spiderman, of course, honestly, having a superhero with a few more options in a situation than 'make a waffle iron' and 'destroy something' was refreshing to say the least. But it became apparent fairly early on that his approach to combat differed from their's a bit.

Most notably, Spiderman tended to rush forward in situations Ladybug and Chat Noir would often back off, which actually ended quite a few Akuma attacks ridiculously quickly, but just as often led to him getting absolutely flattened by the newest strength-enhanced foe.

If it weren't for Lucky Charm's reset powers, she couldn't imagine the amount of pain he'd be under on a day-to-day basis. How on Earth did he manage it back in America?

Though, for that matter, how on Earth was Chat Noir managing in America?

><

Chat Noir was doing surprisingly well, all things considered.

Ned Leeds sat in his darkened room, Seven-Eleven Slurpee beside him, computer in front of him, and a direct line to a superhero that wasn't even from his country attached to his headset.

All in all, life was good.

"Incoming cars and by the looks of it, they're not actually police," he informed the cat-crusader, taking a long sip of his drink.

"You know, Ned, one of these days we're gonna fight bank robbers that don't have backup, and that'll be a fun day," Chat Noir chirped back, gunshots ringing in the background.

It was funny, to Ned, how Chat and Peter were almost as similar as they were different when it came to superheroing. They both talked a lot in the middle of a fight, both did cool jumps and flips to dodge things and take people out, and they both cared more about saving people than catching badguys.

The difference in the first one tended to be while Spiderman did a bunch of quips on the people he was fighting and observations on what was going on, Chat Noir tended more to... wordplay.

"Your aim is really a-paw-ling," Chat Noir taunted, gunshots ringing more furiously a moment after. "Then again, I am very cat-hletic."

Puns. Chat Noir did puns.

Which was weird for Ned, because normally Spiderman was on the receiving end for puns. Peter would show up, the villain would say two hundred bug puns, get arrested, and everyone would go home.

Now it was reversed, or occasionally a pun back and forth between the villain and Chat, which was usually a good time for Ned to stand up, stretch his legs, and maybe grab something from the fridge, so he didn't always have to be there for eighty cat puns a minute.

He was pretty sure he'd started hearing them in his sleep.

In any case, that was just the way Chat did things: almost like Spiderman, but different.

Though that was never more apparent than the way he fought. Ned had been watching news footage, security cameras, even saw him fight in person once and it was... strange.

Oh, he attacked, all right. He kicked, and punched, used his staff, and even clawed people once or twice, but that was never his go-to. It was always more of a finisher, for him. To start off, he usually disarmed them, blocked them off to one area, then used pieces of the enviroment to try to catch them. It was like watching a cat make a mousetrap, both literally and in the sense that it made sense while making absolutely no sense.

Did that make sense?

Thankfully, the last part was where Peter and Chat were most similar: for people with spider and destruction powers, they both worked insanely hard to make sure no innocents got hurt in their fights. Ned was a bit surprised at the lengths Chat went to for that, actually, since he was pretty sure his partner back in Paris had the ability to reset any injuries from an attack. It would be easy to let people get hurt and just have her reverse it once everything was over, but apparently Chat didn't do that.

Still, Peter must have been feeling pretty good, able to do his normal getting thrown through walls thing but without feeling any of it after. Reset powers had to be great.

><

Reset powers were the best.

It was a decision Marinette had come to long before, but the fact she didn't even need to get the smell of smoke out of her clothes, forget all the third degree burns, was worth any bad day Hawkmoth could throw at her.

Tying her apron around her waist, she hugged her dad and set about helping him with what would become the afternoon's batch of freshly baked bread, made just in time for people to buy before dinner. She probably could have seen it as going from work to work, superheroing to baking, but with the way she and her dad talked, the tune he'd whistle as they worked, the calming press of her palms into the dough, it never felt much like work.

Being a superhero was difficult, making beautiful, delicious, loaves of bread was difficult, but work? How could she call it work when it was the only time she got to see Chat? How could she call it work when it was as much a bonding time for her and her dad as their family video game nights were?

She sighed, working the dough some more. Now she was arguing with no one about bread.

"Something wrong, sweetie?" Her dad asked, not quite turning away from the dough to face her, but not looking away either.

"No, I'm alright," she insisted. "Just wish someone had stuck around during the break besides," Chloe, Lila, and Kagami? "Well, instead of going on vacation," she finished.

It really seemed like almost her entire school decided to skip town on the same day. Even Chat was gone for a while, though at least he left behind a substitute.

The bell above the door rang, announcing the presence of a new customer. After dusting her flour covered hands on her apron for a moment, Marinette went out to meet them.

Ah, she thought as she caught sight of the customer. Speaking of Americans...

"Bonjour, Marinette," he greeted with a wave and a big smile. His French really had improved. "Como tally voo?"

Really... it had.

"Bonjour, Peter," she said back, switching to her serviceable, if slightly stilted, English a moment after. "Did you like the Louvre?"

At a glance, Peter Parker was like any other seasonal American tourist, just there to see the sights over break somewhere 'exotic' like Paris. But it didn't take much casual conversation when he first walked into the bakery for her to determine that he was... well, of a different flavor.

"Oh, it was great," he enthused. "An old German lady lost her kid right outside, and I can't speak German, but nobody around could either, so we worked out a sort of picture communication thing with the paint app on my phone, she's actually a really good artist, so then I was going around with her showing the picture to people and asking if anyone had seen her, but not a lot of people know English, and I can't speak French, so then there was a guy who didn't speak German, but spoke French and English, and we used him to ask people if they'd seen the German lady's kid, and finally we found him. Super heartwarming reunion, too."

Marinette raised an amused eyebrow. "And the Louvre?"

"Oh..." he scratched the back of his neck, embarrassed. "The whole thing with the kid took too long, so I didn't get to go inside before it closed."

This was Peter Parker. Messy, loud, honestly a bit scatterbrained, but so steadfastly earnest in his desire to help people, it was hopelessly endearing.

"Now I understand what my friends were talking about," she sighed, putting a box of macarons together before handing it across the counter to him. "I think my 'everyday Ladybug' title is in trouble, with you around."

He took it, opening it up right there and biting into a macaron. "Everyday Ladybug?"

"Just something my classmates call me. It's a little joke, that's all." She checked behind him, but there weren't any other customers waiting, so no real reason she couldn't keep talking to him.

"Oh, I think Adrien mentioned that, actually. It's cause you're so helpful and nice, right?" He took another bite of macaron.

Marinette paused, slowly turning toward him as she worked through the English in her head. No, he definitely said what she thought he said. "You know Adrien Agreste?"

><

MJ knew Adrien Agreste wasn't one of Peter's normal friends. He was a 'Stark Friend,' and those normally meant trouble.

Not, to be clear, that she minded trouble. Really, the sheer amount of trouble Peter Parker caused her and all the people around him was one of the things that interested her the most about him.

By all accounts, Peter was an awkward dweeb. The height of excitement for him should have been watching anime on his laptop and building branded Lego sets too complicated to reasonably still be called a toy for children.

This, though, all the Stark Internship, secret projects, sudden trips to foreign countries, it was like he was overnight abducted into the James Bond program.

So that left the question, was Adrien Agreste, who claimed to be one of those infamous 'Stark Friends,' actually a friend, or some kind of enemy spy?

She used the term spy to match with the James Bond metaphor, he probably wasn't a literal spy. Though, given the Shield/Hydra fiasco plastered over a good ninety percent of the forums she frequented, spies were definitely not discounted in her assessment.

She'd need to find a subtle way to needle the information out of him. Adrien was obviously a rich, well spoken, confident, person, so it would take all of her socially awkward, neurotic, deadpan to match him.

"Cool." She turned back to her book.

That's fine, MJ, you weren't really curious anyway, she sarcastically scolded herself in her head.

Adrien uncertainly scratched the back of his head for a moment before sitting down across from her. "Cards on the Table?" He asked.

Her eyes flicked up for a moment before returning to the book. "You know it?"

"We had to read Ils Etaint Dix for class, but it was one of my classmates that got me into the rest. Cards on the Table is an... interesting one in the series, to say the least." At Michelle's gaze lifting from the book, he continued. "The idea that Poirot can determine so much in personality, situation, from something so simple as the way they marked down their bridge points, it's a little hard to believe."

MJ took that as a challenge. "Do you really think so?" She reached into her bag and pulled out a notebook and a pencil, flipping it to a blank page before handing both to him. "Write something down, anything at all."

With a shrug, Adrien accepted, jotting down a few song lyrics that had been stuck in his head for a while, then passing it back to her.

MJ looked it over, examining the handwriting, which was immaculate, the spacing of the lettering, and the French she, technically, couldn't understand a word of.

"You're from Paris," she began, still peering closely at the notebook page, "a very upperclass portion of Paris, to be specific. You attend a regular high school, but were homeschooled before that. Your career is something physical, appearance based. Actor doesn't really fit, so I want to say model? In your free time you do fencing, rock climbing, and video games." She flipped the notebook closed with a smirk. "How did I do?"

He stared, flabbergasted. "That's incredible. How did you do that?"

She opened her book again, returning to reading. "Not so unbelievable now, is it?"

His hands went up just as a smile lifted his face. "I admit defeat. That was très impressionnant."

"Thanks, I think." Still couldn't speak French.

"How did you figure all that out? If you don't mind my asking." He reached out and she handed him back the notebook so he could peer at what he'd written, attempting to glean the same knowledge from it.

"Oh, it's actually a really simple process," she explained. "All I had to do was take out the notebook and pencil, hand them to you, then text Peter about you while you were writing something down."

Adrien opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again but still no sound came out. "You..." he finally managed. "I can see why Peter wanted me to meet you."

"Of course you can," she answered, flatly. "I'm the best."

><

'I'm the best,' was a sentiment Lila Rossi had decided about herself some time ago, and while the objective veracity of the claim was... disputable, it was one she believed in wholeheartedly.

It was from this and a particular warping of logic from which Lila's seemingly neverending parade of lies came. That logic being: 'I am the best, therefore any claims made to assert that must naturally be true on principle, if not in fact.' Or, to put it another way, the details of any lie she told weren't important so long as the essence of her superiority was received in the message.

If Bruce Banner ever heard of such an insane twisting of logic, the odds of him remaining in his forcefully appointed position as Tony Stark's psychiatrist would become impossibly low.

But, though for who's benefit it's difficult to say, that information had thus far never been communicated outside of Lila Rossi's mind. So, from an outside perspective, Lila was a compulsive liar for no other reason than manipulation and amusement.

Her fervent, almost megalomaniacal, desire to ruin Marinette Dupain-Cheng's life might unofficially be considered the third option in that list.

The bell above the Dupain-Cheng bakery's front entrance rang nearly off its hook as she slammed the door open and walked inside. Normally, she wouldn't set foot near the place, but with most of her classmates gone during the break, this was the place she was most likely to find Marinette during the day, and since her usual set of gullible drones slash witnesses were busy during the break, tormenting Marinette was an excellent timekiller.

Hmm, Timekiller wasn't a bad Akuma name, come to think of it. Maybe she'd suggest it to Hawkmoth next time they talked.

Marinette was talking to a customer in English. Her accent was dreadful, but no surprise there, Lila thought. Still, as she approached the counter and heard their discussion back and forth, they were being far too friendly with each other. Not just a regular customer, then: good to know.

"Hey, Marinette," she greeted with well practiced English. "Care to introduce me to your friend here?"

Marinette's expression deliciously soured as soon as Lila announced her presence. "Peter Parker," she ground out through clenched teeth, "this is Lila Rossi."

"Oh, nice to meet you." He held out a hand.

"Enchanté." Seeing Marinette's face twist up even further when she took it had Lila suppressing a laugh. Really, it was embarrassing how thin-skinned she was. "You're American, right? I spent several years in America, you know. Whereabouts are you from?"

"Queens." He considered for a moment before adding, "that's in New York, I don't know how specific you wanted me to be there..."

"What a coincidence, I lived in New York City," she preened. "I met Captain America, you know."

"Really? That's awesome. I hear he's a great guy." His tone was politely interested, but not as blown away as she wanted.

She pushed further. "Iron Man, too."

That piqued his interest. "Yeah?"

"In fact," a smirk slipped through as she tried to force back the manic grin she felt coming on, "Tony Stark made me his personal assistant."

The exact wording of Peter's response was later deleted and completely scrubbed from Karen's memory. The cloud server that normally housed backups of the recordings the Spiderman suit made suffered a break-in and any copies of the scene were irrevocably corrupted.

The only indication Tony Stark had that an interaction occurred was a strange handwritten apology from a girl he'd never heard of, and a report from Pepper Potts that she had received a similar note.

Marinette spent a good portion of that night with a French to English dictionary, in an effort to figure out just what words could make someone like Lila Rossi turn so completely white, her English not being quite good enough to understand everything as it happened.

By the time the break had ended and the other students returned, Lila had recovered her usual glib bravado, but Marinette privately considered the week or so where Lila completely avoided her and the bakery, to be one of her favorites.

In a later interview, when asked his opinion on several fellow superheroes who utilized excessive profanity, Spiderman refused to comment.


	7. Ascot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting close to the end of this round. As far as I can tell, we've got one more chapter and then, hopefully, we'll see each other again in the sequel (gonna need your help with that, so stay tuned).
> 
> This has been an absolute blast to do, so thank you all for reading and commenting on this strange, strange, work.

Fighting the new boy, this 'Robin', Skulker considered, was not nearly as fun as hunting the ghost boy. Sure, he was competent enough, but he was also just a measly human, no great prize for his collection. Besides that, it was clear from his methods and tools that Robin was a hunter, like him, and honestly he considered hunting other hunters to be bad form unless they were particularly rare specimens. No, after a few scattered spars, Skulker decided hunting Robin was a lost cause.

Robin's friends were another story.

He had caught whiffs of them on the air when Robin had passed by, their scent clinging to the boy wonder's multicolored cape, and realized that whatever species they were, he couldn't recognize them. Now there was a hunt worth having.

Unfortunately, until the little bird flew back home, he was stuck just watching him. Watching someone he wasn't hunting, Skulker discovered, was incredibly boring.

"Whatcha doing?" Ember asked, appearing beside him with a suddenness that was far too practised for a non-hunter, and was she chewing on some vile human food? Disgusting.

"I am carefully stalking this Robin, so he can lead me to his nest," Skulker explained, gruffly.

"Neat," Ember responded with no real enthusiasm. After a moment, she took another bite of-

"What is that?" He gestured wildly to the partially chewed item in her hand.

Her eyes trailed down to the object for a moment, before returning to him. "I dunno." She shrugged. "Took it off some kid." With that question decidedly not answered, she took another bite.

Skulker pinched the bridge of his nose between two mechanical fingers, shaking his head in exasperation. "Do you even know if that's food?"

Ember's exasperation rose to match his as she rolled her eyes. "Who cares? What's it gonna do, kill me?"

Ugh. Ember's tendency toward morbidity could be trying at times. Yes, they were dead, but honestly that just made his hunting better, there was no need to be so bitter about the whole thing. He held out a hand. "Give it here."

Ember drew back, clutching it protectively. "What? No."

"That could be the power core to an anti-ghost weapon," Skulker accused, trying to reach toward it again. "Who knows what it'd do to your insides?"

She held it up some more, still out of his reach. "Or maybe it's a candy bar-ow, get off." She started kicking him, taking more bites out of spite.

"Ow, Ember, gah, stop eating it." Skulker kept trying to reach for it, but through some combination of natural height and supernatural flight, she kept it out of his hands.

It was at this point, Robin's gaze was firmly locked on the two ghosts. He already had a sort of ghost-radar outfitted onto his utility belt, so knowing they were there before wasn't an issue, but after their loud argument and ensuing scuffle, they were drawing more than a few eyes in their direction.

A half eaten cellphone skidded across the dirt to land at Robin's feet.

Ghosts were weird.

><

Beast Boy didn't have a lot of experience with ghosts, so he couldn't really say 'all ghosts were weird.' Danny totally was, though. Kind of disturbingly weird, which normally would be bad, but with the Teen Titans just meant it felt like he'd always been there.

If some mad scientist, and they'd fought a few so it wasn't outside the scope of possibility, had taken bits from every other Titan and merged them together into one crazy Titan mix clone, that would be Danny Phantom.

Raven's phase-y ghost powers, that was obvious, but he had something like her deadpan sarcasm, too.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Danny groaned as he phased Cyborg through a large chunk of falling rubble. "This is the guy tearing up the city?"

Control Freak laughed maniacally, whatever method he used to grow to giant size more highlighting his unwashed hair and pimply face than giving him any real intimidation factor.

Raven did the same for Beast Boy and Starfire. "What he lacks in upper body strength, cleanliness, combat skill, or a workable plan, he more than makes up for in..."

"Patheticness?" Danny offered.

Raven considered for a moment. "I was going to say size, but yeah, let's go with that."

His ecto blasts were pretty much the same as Starfire's energy beams, color included, and from her he'd apparently inherited her titanium stomach. There were one or two more exotic Tamaranian foods everyone else knew to avoid by then that gave him some trouble, but everything else was on the table.

Well, sometimes it leaped off the table and started crashing around the room, but eventually he ate that too.

"Heading for ya, Danny," Cyborg shouted as the alien bird-like creature that was supposed to be dinner soared through the air toward him.

"Ugh, the deja vu," Danny winced, transforming into the phantom so he could fly to meet it, hands glowing with ectoblasts. "Dinner, prepare to be precooked."

From Beast Boy, he had a bit of shapeshifting, changing his body not to fit a certain animal, but just to shift and stretch beyond what was natural. That, paired with his tendency to watch too much TV and make really stupid jokes seemed Beast Boy enough.

"House," Cyborg guessed.

"The uppermost section of the house," Starfire added.

Raven raised an eyebrow. "Ceiling? Attic?"

Cyborg snapped his fingers. "Roof."

"Cat on a hot tin roof," Raven got a moment later.

Beast Boy hopped off of Danny's back, transforming back from his green and black feline form at the conclusion of their latest 'Shapeshifter Charades' game.

"Well done by all," Starfire clapped.

Raven sighed, turning to Danny. "Was the face really necessary?"

Danny put his hand to his cleft chin, the chiseled jaw and pronounced lips completing the 'hot' section of 'Cat on a hot tin roof,' as he considered the question.

"Yes," he answered.

His ice powers, the blasts themselves and his ghost sense, matched up nicely with Cyborg's sonic cannon and sensor system, and as it turned out, Danny was a huge space nerd who wanted to be an astronaut, so the two of them talked about that a bunch.

Actually, with half the team being extraterrestrial in some capacity, space tended to come up a lot in random conversations, Danny's astronaut thing just added to it.

"I can now officially ask for directions in four alien languages," Danny announced, ecstatic. "Ship me off to space. I'm ready."

Finally, from Robin he got his default fighting style, which tended to be a lot of punching, and the ability to make workable plans on the fly, which was something the rest of the Titans... still needed to work on.

"Come on, Raven. It'll be great," Beast Boy pleaded, slowly approaching with the disguise.

"If you take one step closer with that wig, you'll be tasting it for days," Raven warned, her fist glowing with a monochrome tint.

Danny raised a hand. "Hey, why don't I just turn everyone invisible, and sneak inside that way?"

As they walked invisibly into the secure compound, Beast Boy grumbled that the disguises, "totally would've worked," with Starfire patting him comfortingly on the back while the rest of the titans ignored him.

The point was, while Danny was far from the only Honorary Titan, this was the first time anyone had clicked so well with the team since... well, since Terra.

That was a mood killer.

"Hey, Beast Boy," Danny's hand landed on his shoulder. "You good?"

Beast Boy nodded, taking a moment before smiling up at the boy. "Yeah, I'm good." He raised a controller, shaking it slightly. "Best two out of three?"

Danny laughed, taking his own controller in hand. "Let's say six out of ten, that way I might have a ghost of a chance figuring out how to beat you."

Cyborg shook his head disapprovingly as he walked into the room, soda in hand. After taking a slow sip, he pointed a finger at Danny. "That pun was straight up awful, man."

"Well that's just harsh," Danny shot back, and by the widening of his grin Cyborg knew he'd made a mistake, giving him an opening. "I've been dying to tell that one."

Raven had chosen that moment to walk into the room, choosing the moment right after she heard the pun to walk out again.

Danny thought that was fair.

><

This was so unfair. Valerie Gray, fully decked out in her Red Huntress ghost fighting gear, floated alongside the multicolored superhero that shouldn't have been in town, why was he in town?

She wasn't some superhero fangirl, sending in her club card and paying her dues to get the latest collectible poster, but she was also a teenager in the modern world so of course she had a favorite superhero.

It was Gambit, but Robin was up there too.

So when the actual leader of the Teen Titans, former sidekick to Batman, honest to goodness Robin showed up in Amity Park where she could fight alongside him as some kind of peer, it should have been one of the best things ever. Except, he was all buddy-buddy with Phantom, because of course he was.

So unfair.

"You didn't have to come along." How did Robin get his voice to travel so well while parkouring over rooftops? Valerie always ended up having to shout, even when just flying on her board.

Case in point. "You can't keep me out of ghost hunting that way, super-tourist," and wasn't it weird to be able to say that to a decorated superhero.

"Do you r-" there was a grunt as something slammed into Robin, knocking him off the roof.

A slow, southern drawl creeped through the air. "Practicing vigilante justice outside your jurisdiction." Walker shimmered into view. "That's against the rules."

Valerie darted back, her hoverboard matching the action. She'd heard about Walker before, but it was all secondhand. Since he hardly ever left the Ghost Zone, she'd never had to fight him, personally.

Well, there was a first time for everything.

With a flick of her wrist, she clicked her internal blaster into its armed position and shot at Walker before he'd even finished dropping out of invisibility. Unfortunately, he shifted into a green mist and teleported even faster than that.

"Really?" She yelled at nothing. "He can teleport, are you serious?"

"Deadly serious, little lady," Walker's voice came from above before an ectoblast smashed against her head, dropping her ten or twenty feet before she regained her balance. "And attempted battery on a law enforcement officer? That's against the rules, too."

A whizzing blade, almost invisible against the night sky, shot toward Walker, who managed to teleport out of the way just in time for it to miss him. Unfortunately, he teleported directly into the path of another blade, which exploded on impact, blasting him out of the sky.

"New game, Walker," Robin announced, flipping back onto the roof and showing off a small red box, within which a host of what must have been Walker's wardens was kept. "Your rules don't apply."

Gambit was Valerie's favorite superhero. He was nice, fun, he had such a destructive power and he still used it to protect people, to help. He'd even saved her father on a business trip he took once. When she put on her Red Huntress gear, when she rode out into the night to protect everyone she loved, her father, her friends, Danny; Gambit was everything she strived to be. Still...

Robin was definitely up there.

><

"Oh yeah, Robin's definitely up there." Jinx lowered the electronic binoculars looking at Titans Tower before tossing them to the side, the device already shorting out from contact with her powers. "Let's move."

Gizmo followed along behind her, his four mechanical spider legs doing the walking so he didn't have to. Unfortunately, this gave him plenty of time to complain. "This is stupid," he griped. "Why didn't the crud-muncher come out to fight Slade, if he's been here the whole time?"

"Doesn't make a lotta sense," Mammoth agreed. "He likes fighting Slade more'n he likes fighting us."

Jinx sighed at her friends, slash teammates, slash lackeys. "Gizmo, can you list the top three reasons a superhero would be missing in a fight? I know it's been a while since Advanced Criminology at Hive Academy, but try your best."

Gizmo shot her a glare at the patronizing tone, but did as she asked anyway. "Defected to the villain's side."

The eye roll she gave at that was one of her favorites. "This is Robin we're talking about? Zod could pop out of the Phantom Zone right in front of him and offer him an apprenticeship, he'd still turn it down."

"Secret infiltration mission," Gizmo suggested next, a standard in the villainous curriculum, for all the good it did them against Stone.

"Been there, done that, didn't work." Jinx's tone was icy as she shot the idea down. "Besides, if he's not Red X-ing it up with Slade, who would he be trying to infiltrate? No matter what Killer Moth's up to this week, I don't think it compares to..." she snapped her fingers at Mammoth, "what was Slade's plan this time, again?"

Mammoth scratched his head for a moment before answering. "I think it was sinking the city into the ocean? I dunno, I don't watch the news."

She waved a hand, dismissively. "Yeah, that sounds about right. No way Robin's undercover somewhere seeing what Mumbo's up to while that was going down. So that just leaves...?"

Mammoth and Gizmo traded glances before turning back to her and shrugging.

"It's a wonder any of you graduated," she grumbled, sourly.

"We cheated to pass all our classes, like everyone else," Gizmo snapped back. "What are you, on the villain honor roll?"

"Stole and memorized all the test answers?" She smirked. "Efficient and untraceable, mister still-in-the-crib notes."

Mammoth grabbed Gizmo's backpack before he could launch himself at Jinx. "Are you gonna say the answer or not?"

"The third most likely reason a hero would miss a fight is if they were sick, injured, lost their memories, or were otherwise incapacitated," Jinx elucidated, snidely. "So if Robin wasn't at the fight..." she gestured widely toward Titan's Tower.

Mammoth nodded. "He's up there."

She did the same. "Definitely."

Gizmo slammed his fist into his other hand, an action that may have been intimidating if he wasn't only barely bigger than a breadbox. "And if the fart-sniffer's too sick to fight Slade, he's too sick to fight us."

"Gentleman." Jinx smiled widely. "Who wants to take out a Titan?"

At the pair's enthusiastic agreement, the Hive graduates made their way to Titans Tower and broke their way inside. Whichever doors Gizmo couldn't hack, Mammoth broke, and whichever ones Mammoth couldn't break, Jinx destroyed or short circuited enough for the other two to get through. She could gripe all she wanted about their personal issues, but Jinx had to admit they were an effective team.

They took the elevator, thankfully not broken by Mammoth or Jinx just yet, up to where they remembered the Titans' rooms were the last time they'd popped in for a 'visit,' and split up to look for any Titans left behind to keep track of Robin. Tactics 101: take out the doctor, then nurse, then patient, every time. But after searching around for a few minutes, they couldn't find hide nor hair of any of the Titans, Robin included.

Confidence undeterred, however, the trio made their way to Robin's room and its absurdly reinforced design. Once it was clear Gizmo would be trying to crack it for a while, Mammoth and Jinx split up to raid the fridge and start breaking expensive video game systems, respectively.

It was when Jinx was reaching into game cases to rip up the cover art, the one she was holding flew out of her hand and toward Gizmo, narrowly missing his head by a couple inches.

"Hey, watch what you're doing, crudhead," Gizmo shouted. "I'm trying to focus, here."

Jinx stuck her tongue out at him in response before turning back to the game cases and shrugging the event off as her powers doing their regular unpredictable thing. Still, she left the cases, deciding instead to see how many handprints she could get on the massive TV screen up against the wall.

It was only when the entire pizza Mammoth was about to eat got catapulted toward Jinx, they collectively acknowledged they might have missed someone in their search.

"I don't get it," Mammoth groaned. "We checked every room."

"Whoever it is, isn't showing up on any of the security feeds, either." As a rule, Gizmo didn't like his attention being split between trying to hack open a door and checking the building for life signs, but the opportunity to take down any Titan, much less the leader, trumped any amount of minor annoyances.

Or at least, that's what he thought.

Before they could investigate further, the game cases Jinx had been messing with earlier, as well as a host of old pizza boxes that hadn't yet been taken out by the trash began floating and spinning in the air.

In the center of the maelstrom, a blue skinned man with similarly colored overalls rose from the ground. All the floating objects stilled in the air for a moment as he breathed in to give his ghastly declaration.

"Beware!"

Jinx slapped a hand to her forehead. "You have got to be kidding me."

><

He had to be kidding, that was the assumption Tucker and Sam had when Danny told them about his sudden participation in a superhero group chat. Granted, he was a superhero, as strange as that still was, and the odds of him eventually coming into contact with other superheroes were good enough that it was bound to happen eventually, but in Paris? He was only there for, like, half a day. Less-than, because of travel times.

So, when Robin came to Amity Park and Danny began showing him around, helping him outfit with ghost gear, and telling Sam and Tucker that he'd be shortly traveling to Jump City to work with the Teen Titans, the unreality of it all began to shake Tucker.

When he started living in Sam's house, eating meals there with her and Tucker whenever they were available, bowling or playing video games, and even taking a selfie with Sam to add to her Batman notebook, Tucker felt like he was dreaming.

And when several days before the end of the swap, Sam told him that she hadn't seen Robin at breakfast, or in fact, at any point in the day, Tucker firmly wished he could wake up.

><

"Wake up, wake up, my duckies." Danny felt a light slapping on his face, rousing him from slumber. A fact that was particularly odd, considering he never remembered going to sleep.

Danny opened bleary eyes to see a school so close to Casper High, yet undeniably, unnervingly different.

Also, he was strapped to a chair.

The red-headed man with an obnoxious British accent took a step back, beaming past his blue tinted glasses. "Welcome, welcome, welcome, to all our new students."

"Oh, I've got a bad feeling about this," Spiderman groused from the side. Looking left and right, Danny could also see Robin, and Chat there, similarly affixed to their own chairs with a variety of instruments.

"What is going on?" Chat shouted.

"Why, it's the back to school special, my little sprogs." He slammed his jeweled cane into the floor. "Time for you lot to get to learning."


End file.
